


pocky

by orphan_account



Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, pocky game (・８・)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-05
Updated: 2016-08-05
Packaged: 2018-07-29 11:35:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7682944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a warm, sunny Tuesday, and Subaru is armed and dangerous.</p>
<p>His weapon of choice?</p>
<p>Pocky.</p>
            </blockquote>





	pocky

**Author's Note:**

> THEYRE CUTE WTF!! i kinda copped out within the first... paragraph... i wrote this really quickly in the car and i was like LOL this sucks so if i can figure out how to orphan fics it's gotta go... but if not please cover my username and pretend i didnt write this bc its bad

Kunugi-sensei is reviewing stuff he already knows, leaving him time to think. About things. Not like Subaru can focus anyways, even if he wanted to; he's squirming in his chair in anticipation for lunch break.

His plan is perfect—challenge Hokuto to play the Pocky Game with him. That's all he has, plan-wise, but he knows it'll work. Hokuto might refuse, at first, but Subaru knows if he just appeals to his competitive spirit, Hokuto won't be able to back down. It'll be great: He'll lure Hokuto in, wait until he pulls away, and then gloat and rub his victory in Hokuto's face for the rest of the week, and _then_  he'll get to see Hokuto's cute embarrassed face, flushed a pretty shade of red and lowered in shame. Uh. Yeah. What he means by 'cute' is that some people, objectively, could possibly consider a blushing Hokuto cute, maybe. Some people. Including him, actually, because what's the shame in finding Hokuto's blushing face cute? _He_ isn't ashamed, that's for sure.

Anyways, the plan is good.

And if Hokuto doesn't back down? Well, Subaru supposes he wouldn't mind kissing Hokuto. Just once, to see how it feels. He wonders absently if Hokuto's lips are chapped, maybe, or if he uses lip balm. Probably soft, he decides; Hokuto is the type to worry about that kind of thing to the point of using lip balm, or maybe his grandma recommended it, or maybe he uses lip balm to prepare for people kissing him. People like Subaru. The thought of it is (slightly, just a little) endearing. Subaru thinks he would like kissing Hokuto, lips smooth and plush against his own, hands fisted in Subaru's uniform, and—

And—... Well.

He feels around for the box of Pocky in his back pocket and inwardly sighs with relief when he feels the glossy cardboard under his fingers, just like it was 5 minutes ago, and the 5 minutes before that, and the 5 minutes before _that_... And then there's a shadow, suddenly, blocking out his view of Kunugi-sensei, who has... stopped talking a few minutes ago. Subaru looks up.

"Class ended a while ago, Bakakehoshi," comes a familiar cool voice from above him. Oh. Subaru licks his lips involuntarily. "Have you been daydreaming again?"

"Yep! Hey, will you lend me your notes, Hokke?" Subaru grins. Hokuto doesn't suspect a thing. Not like he would. Because Hokuto isn't a mind-reader. Probably.

"Not a chance," Hokuto scoffs, whapping Subaru (unfairly) on the head with his notebook. "Isara's busy with student council work, so it'll be just us three today."

Subaru grins and starts pushing their desks together.

\--

"Have you ever played the Pocky Game, Ukki?" Subaru asks Makoto. The way Makoto's eyes widen in horror lets Subaru know that, yeah, he probably has.

"You saw us? When? I-I just wanted to try it, okay, and we didn't even kiss for that long, and it really wasn't—"

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

"I didn't see you! I just thought that that seaweed-head guy might've played it with you," Subaru explains, placing a banana on Makoto's lap placatingly and giving it a gentle pat. Makoto sags in relief.

"Me? Izumi-san? No. I mean... yeah. No. That's..."

Subaru is pretty sure that if it wasn't seaweed dude that Makoto played it with, he has a good idea of who he _did_  play with. He won't push it, though, because that was just the introduction. The segway into Subaru's Master Pocky Plan. Hokuto eats his lunch slowly and eyes Subaru with suspicion.

"Hokke! Let's play the Pocky Game!" Subaru gives Hokuto the most winning smile he can possibly muster, which is saying a lot, because all his smiles are, if he does say so himself, quite winning already.

"What's the Pocky Game?" Hokuto asks, leveling a deeply mistrustful look at Subaru. Ah, yes. This is perfect. If Subaru is being completely honest, it's kind of adorable that Hokuto doesn't know what it is. But that's not the point.

"It's a game where one person has a stick of Pocky..."—A stick of chocolate goodness is waved in front of Hokuto's face for emphasis—"...and they have it so it's sticking out of their mouth. The other person puts their mouth on the other end, and then they both start chewing towards the center. The first person who pulls away loses."

"What happens if neither person pulls away?"

"It's a tie," Subaru says, unable to keep a note of mischief from entering his voice.

Hokuto searches Subaru's expression, as if looking for something.

"...Unless you're too scared," Subaru adds. There: there's a little fire in Hokuto's eyes now, and Subaru feels his heart squeeze with anticipation.

"I'll do it."

"Prepare to lose," Subaru teases, voice a little muffled around the Pocky. His pulse definitely, obviously does not speed up when Hokuto gets up from his seat, walking around the desk to face Subaru. Subaru's hands grip the edge of his chair. Prepare to lose, Hokke, he thinks determinedly.

"Yuuki," Hokuto starts. Both Subaru and Makoto jump a little. "You're the referee."

"O-Okay?" Makoto stammers, looking entirely unprepared and overwhelmed. Hokuto takes the other end of the stick of Pocky into his mouth, and Subaru can't stop his gaze from dropping down to Hokuto's lips.

"Ready."

"Set."

"Go!"

Subaru nibbles slowly at the stick of Pocky, trying to stall for time. Hokuto seems to be doing the same thing, unfortunately; the Pocky stick trembles with each little bite, growing smaller and smaller, like a lit fuse. Black hair falls prettily into Hokuto's eyes, which really can be _too_  blue sometimes, but that's not the point. The point is winning, which is what Subaru will be doing when Hokuto backs off. Any second now. Warm breath tickles across Subaru's face as they draw closer, only a couple of centimeters apart, and Subaru can't seem to break eye contact with Hokuto. Which is probably for the best—intimidation tactics and all that.

One centimeter.

The calming smell of jasmine tea and a muted floral fragrance.

Lilac?

Hokuto is about to give up, Subaru is sure, and then he's not, because there's something soft, softer than he could've ever predicted, and it's touching his lips.

They're kissing.

He was right about Hokuto—that he uses lip balm and that his kisses are gentle. Gentle enough to make nervous warmth curl in his stomach, flooding the rest of his body and they're _kissing_. Their noses are bumping, so Subaru adjusts the angle a little bit, fingers soft on Hokuto's jaw, and, yeah, this is much better. Better than before, which was—

—Wow.

This is happening.

Subaru can feel a hand thread softly through his hair, and he shivers a little bit, struggling against the urge to kiss Hokuto harder. He can feel Hokuto's eyelashes flutter against his cheeks, and Subaru opens his eyes (when did he close them?), only to be met by Hokuto's, half-lidded and hazy, and then—

There's an absence of warmth, then, and Subaru only registers himself pulling away after they're already apart. They both look at Makoto, who seems exceedingly distressed, adjusting and re-adjusting his glasses with a beat-red face and shaking hands. He's also pointedly avoiding both of their gazes.

"I think... I mean, I'm pretty sure that was a tie..."

Subaru looks back at Hokuto.

His face is flushed a pleasing shade of pink, all the way up to the tips of his ears, and his hair is a little ruffled. Hokuto's lips are pink, pinker than normal, and his eyes look strangely distant, although they snap back to focus when he notices Subaru looking at him. Even though his face isn't burning with defeat, well...

Subaru thinks he likes this face on Hokuto far more.

"I'll win next time," Hokuto tells him, serious face contrasting hilariously with the cute blush on his face. Cute. Yeah, it's cute.

'Next time'.

Subaru smiles down at his rice.

//

He can't stop thinking about the kiss.

He thinks about it during practice and misses a step (Hokuto yells at him), he thinks about it when he's walking home, he thinks about it while he's doing homework, he thinks about it during basketball practice, and he thinks about it, unfortunately, when he's taking a shower, and then he ends up taking too long when he stops to imagine actually using tongue, and how flushed and needy Hokuto would look and then he's walk-waddling quickly out of the shower and his mom yells at him to put on a towel.

This is a sign that they should have a rematch, obviously.

It happens, actually: a few days later, when he and Hokuto are sitting and and eating lunch outside (Mao is busy with student council work, and Makoto is busy with the broadcasting committee). It's a beautiful day to sit in the shade of a tree, eating and maybe also kissing, possibly. No; the objective of the Pocky Game is to win, and then get to gloat at Hokuto. Yes, that's it. And if he gets to kiss Hokuto, well. Subaru guesses that would be alright, maybe.

Subaru holds a Pocky stick between his lips and turns to Hokuto, hoping he will get the hint. Of course, he doesn't: after what is probably an hour of Hokuto staring intently at his lunch (he's already done with it, Subaru knows), Subaru pokes Hokuto's shoulder with his Pocky stick. Hokuto whirls around, irritated look on his face fading slightly when he sees the Pocky.

"What are you doing?" asks Hokuto, sounding disgruntled.

"Rematch," Subaru says simply. It's a little muffled by the Pocky, but Hokuto knows what he means.

He watches Hokuto's face, sees it cycle though a whole host of different emotions before smoothing out into an unreadable expression. There's a moment where Subaru thinks that Hokuto might actually turn him down, but Hokuto snorts after a few seconds, taking the other end of the Pocky into his mouth.

They both start nibbling after an unspoken signal passes between them. Hokuto is moving faster this time, Subaru notes; more bite than nibble, perhaps in an attempt to intimidate Subaru into pulling away. Fat chance, Hokke. Subaru is going to win, even if it means risking a few kisses. He's not a super-competitive person, honestly. This is just for the sake of seeing an embarrassed Hokuto.

Jerking out of his thoughts, Subaru notices that there's barely a centimeter of the Pocky stick left between them, and when Subaru's eyes flick up to Hokuto's, he finds that Hokuto is already looking at him. There's a weird look in his eyes, like he's asking Subaru permission to do something. So, Subaru nods.

Hokuto eats the last little bit of Pocky and then they're kissing, soft and warm and everything Subaru has ever wanted. He notices Hokuto's lips are more pliant, not tightly closed like last time, and he wraps his arms around Hokuto, tugging him closer. This is honestly sort of gay, Subaru thinks. Maybe it has something to do with kissing another boy. There's a tongue tracing the seam of his mouth, and all Subaru's thoughts go out the window when he tastes chocolate and a hint of tuna from his lunch, because. Because. Hokuto's tongue is in his mouth, suddenly, and Subaru is pretty okay with this. More than okay, really.

When they pull apart, Subaru wants to say something like 'where did you learn how to do  _that?_ ', but all that comes out is 'Hokuto', voice shaky and embarrassingly breathy. Hokuto's eyes widen in a rare display of surprise, which helps Subaru salvage at least a little bit of his pride.

"Again," Hokuto says, after they catch their breath, and Subaru is all too willing to agree.

The next round ends in a tie, too.

\--

Subaru isn't sure when it happens, but the Pocky stops being a necessary component of their version of the Pocky Game. Which, if he thinks about it, is really just kissing at this point.

In the following days, Subaru takes to carrying around a box of Pocky (matcha, because it's apparently Hokuto's favorite), poking Hokuto with it whenever they're alone (well, semi-alone) and he wants to. To. To kiss, he guesses, and to see Hokuto's face, flushed and open. Sometimes, of course, Subaru does it just to annoy Hokuto, to see him frown and flick Subaru on the forehead. It's unexpected, though, how often Hokuto gives in and plays with Subaru, sometimes even when they're not completely alone and Subaru offers the Pocky as a joke, and then Hokuto is kissing him and Subaru is kissing back and it just feels right.

The Pocky is eaten quicker and quicker each time they do it until it's gone in two bites and a matter of seconds, the taste of green tea lingering in their mouths. Subaru's mom is initially curious as to why he is consuming so much Pocky, but eventually stops giving him or his Pocky a second glance, having apparently chalked it up being to another one of Subaru's idiosyncrasies.

One day, Hokuto and Subaru are alone in the library, reviewing for a test. Subaru is bored, having already studied (a little), tried to bug Hokuto to talk to him (no luck), and contorted himself into various shapes of increasing complexity. He settles on watching Hokuto study, observing how his hair hangs over his paper, his neat, businesslike handwriting, his tiny sighs whenever he's struggling with something. Hokuto's beautiful, Subaru knows, but it's suddenly unbearable now and Subaru really, really wants to kiss him. So.

So he does; he waits for Hokuto to lift his head a little and then he goes for it, pressing his lips quickly to Hokuto's, then pulling back. Hokuto turns to him slowly, face pink and way too cute and then Subaru's kissing him again, nervous energy knotting his stomach into ropes. They break apart after a couple of seconds, a little fear spiking at the base of his spine until he sees Hokuto's expression, can tell that Hokuto's disgruntled but not shaken. Subaru can't keep the grin from blooming on his face, and he only grins wider when Hokuto frowns.

Despite Hokuto grumbling about studying, Subaru has him distracted now. Subaru: 1, Hokuto: 0.

The librarian ends up having to kick them out half an hour later, saying something about noise and respect.

\--

Subaru is unstoppable after that, sneaking kisses whenever Hokuto and him are alone, and sometimes even when they're not. He's always the one initiating their kisses, but he doesn't mind, really. Hokuto's too much of a grump to initiate everything, but he certainly doesn't mind escalating things (seriously, where did he learn how to do that?!). Since their rematch under the tree, though, Subaru can proudly say that he's not the only one going weak-kneed; Hokuto is forced to borrow makeup from the theater club when Subaru gets too enthusiastic, sucking marks on Hokuto's skin that blossom blue, purple, red. Hokuto scolds him for it, after, but the immense satisfaction he gets when Hokuto rubs unconsciously at the marks on his neck is pretty much worth it, he thinks. But, yeah, Hokuto doesn't really initiate kisses.

Until.

They're all exhausted and satisfied after winning a mock Dreamfes against RYUSEITAI, one day. Subaru is particularly pumped up, grinning and congratulating Makoto and Mao, slapping them both on the back. Hokuto is trailing behind them, so Subaru drops back, expecting Hokuto to critique his performance or maybe, just maybe, congratulate him too. After falling in step besides Hokuto, Subaru turns to him, about to open his mouth to say something when his lips are covered by Hokuto's, soft as always. When Hokuto pulls back, he has a look on his face like he's daring Subaru to make fun of him, but his ears are suspiciously red. Subaru grins and pulls Hokuto into another kiss, and he doesn't really care if Mao and Makoto see, either.

Hokuto is cute.

\--

[7:34 PM] hokke!!!!!: Does this mean we're dating

**Author's Note:**

> i wanted to make this longer and have them have a bunch of angst about whether theyre going out or not like dumb high school boys but... i'm tired!!!!!!! hokke is moe!!! goodnight!!!!!!!


End file.
